


A Miracle

by Guanin



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Fix-It: s04e13 Journey's End, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22146907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guanin/pseuds/Guanin
Summary: It might be wishful thinking, a ridiculous, fantastical thought, and yet the possibility that the mysterious, powerful being the Doctor had based his current form on could help Donna was all that kept the Doctor from succumbing to despair. As Donna crumbled from the untenable pressure of melded Time Lord and human biology, the Doctor reached out through time, desperately searching for the one being who might be able to help.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Comments: 12
Kudos: 210





	A Miracle

Long ago, the Doctor had met a being who could alter reality around him with a mere thought. He had never learned how, or if it was even possible for him to discover it. This being, bearing the guise of a regular human, blended in with the people of Earth like the Doctor did, yet he also stood apart. The Doctor had never been given a chance to ask him who he was or where he came from. Not given, not because he hadn’t had one, but because the being had taken it away. One moment, the Doctor had been asking too many pointed questions about the small, English village that mysteriously remained plague-free despite the disease running rampant across its neighboring settlements in 1349. The next, he had been filled with an immense urge to leave immediately. Before he knew it, he was back in the Tardis, staring in a daze at the console, which had reworked its settings to seek a destination other than here without his prompting. 

He blinked, brain muddled, as if his skull had been stuffed with treacle, as the whoosh of the engines startled him into wakefulness. He hadn’t meant to return to the Tardis, nor had the Tardis meant to leave. She couldn’t tell him so in so many words, but he could sense her confusion in the air, thick as marmalade.

That man. He wanted them gone. Gone from his village. Come to think of it, the Doctor couldn’t even remember walking back to the Tardis. The stranger had simply clicked his fingers and back in the Tardis he was. Only a second had elapsed. The man might be able to displace and befuddle him, but he couldn’t mess with the Doctor’s sense of time. 

The Doctor considered returning, but decided not to. The stranger’s action hadn’t been malicious. He merely wanted to be left alone. If he’d been really annoyed with the Doctor, he could probably have sent him to the midst of the Atlantic Ocean to drown, which the Doctor had no doubt that he could do. He certainly could keep people from getting sick. Crops from failing in the middle of a drought. Kids from having to make their way without shoes. Everyone in the village was healthy, well fed and dressed, and as happy as it was possible to be. That did not happen by accident, especially not in Medieval Earth. There was an air about that man, a texture that the Doctor couldn’t identify. He wasn’t human, nor was he any species that the Doctor had come across before. He looked shifty, a trickster, but a benevolent one. One saving people in the midst of one of the worst epidemics in human history. But it was more than that. 

The one thing that the Doctor had been certain of when he had stood before the man was power. The man possessed an immense amount of it. There was no device responsible for his altering reality. It was him. The Doctor had never believed in magic. It was just a science that hadn’t been explained yet, but he knew, deep down in the marrow of his bones, 900-year-old instincts screaming at him that this man, this being, whatever he may be, had no need for something as mundane as technology or the laws of physics, biology, or anything else. For all the Doctor knew, he might be able to rewrite them himself. 

It might be wishful thinking, a ridiculous, fantastical thought, and yet the possibility, minute though it may be, was all that kept the Doctor from succumbing to despair and committing the only thing that he could do to help Donna. A wretched, cruel thing it would be. She knew it as sorely as he did, her wide, teary eyes begging him to save her from the untenable melding of human and Time Lord biologies ripping apart her mind. 

“I was going to stay with you forever,” she said, her miserable imploration tearing his heart apart.

Throat aching, the Doctor raised his hands to her head and swallowed a shuddering breath. 

His hands fell down at his sides. He couldn’t do this. 

“There’s one thing we could try,” he said, rushing to the console. He sure hoped that he was right. There was no other alternative. Connecting his mind to the Tardis, he summoned his memories of the mysterious being, searching for his presence across the universe, begging for a miracle. The center column began descending as the Tardis fixed on a location and time and the engines revved to go to it. Sweat beaded the Doctor’s brow as he focused all his energy on that being, never allowing any other thoughts to enter his mind, not for a fraction of a second, no matter how dizzy he felt or weak his knees got. 

An eternity later, the Tardis stopped. Behind him, Donna groaned, clutching the railing. 

“Hold on, Donna,” he said, grasping her briefly by the shoulders, wincing at the pain twisting her face. He ran for the door, opening it in the face of a startled man who had his hand raised to knock. He was staring at the Doctor in absolute shock, which the Doctor didn’t have time to manage right now, for he was the wrong man. This one was blonde and stout with Victorian clothes, standing in an old bookshop. Why weren’t they in the 14th century? Was the being in the 19th as well? Was this him? Could he change appearance, too? 

“Hi,” the Doctor said. “I’m the Doctor. Are you the man or being who saved a village from the plague in 1349?”

A confused frown wrinkled the man’s brow even as he continued to stare at the Doctor as if he were the Queen of England. The Doctor’s heart sank, as did his body, which sagged against the doorframe.

“1-1349?” the man asked, stumbling over his words. “I-I don’t know why you would think that I was around in 134—”

Donna cried out, silencing the man, who peered behind the Doctor with concern. Donna was clinging to the rail, her knees failing her as she sank to the ground. Oh, no. She was getting worse. The Doctor ran to her, the man following close behind, and crouched beside her, his hearts aching in his chest, tears springing to his eyes. This had been his last chance, his final hope. If the being wasn’t here, there was nothing that he could do.

“What is happening to her?” the man asked. The Doctor had barely noticed him sinking down beside him. “There’s something wrong. I sense…”

Sense?

“This Dumbo’s Time Lordness is killing me,” Donna cried out, scrunching her eyes shut in pain.

“Time Lord,” the man murmured, understanding coming over his face as he glanced at the Doctor before turning his attention back to Donna. “Yes, that does explain it.”

“Explain what?” the Doctor asked. “What are you doing?”

For the man had reached for Donna, placing his hands on her face and turning her gently towards him. Immediately, her pain seemed to lessen as he smiled, a kindly, soothing smile, the most soothing that the Doctor had ever seen. It took his breath away. Was this him? Was it the being he was searching for?

“It’s alright, my dear,” the man told Donna, his voice as soft as a puppy’s fur. “You’re going to be alright.”

Donna’s breath, which had been heaving before, stabilized, the fear in her eyes dissipating and her muscles relaxing as the man did whatever he was doing. All the Doctor could do was stare, open-mouthed, his worry and curiosity overwhelming to the point of physical pain, but he curbed his usual urge to ask questions out of fear that he might break the man’s concentration. Finally, Donna slumped against the railing with an exhausted sigh, eyes slipping shut. 

“What did you do?” the Doctor asked, grabbing Donna by the shoulders. She didn’t move, but her breath and pulse were steady.

“I’ve stabilized her for now,” the man said, lowering his hands. “I’m afraid that’s all I can do without help. I’ve never been faced with a situation like this before. Or met a Time Lord. But Crowley will be around shortly. He’s better at healing than I am. Not that I’m not excellent, but… Well, never mind.”

“Who are you?” the Doctor asked, breathless, hearts pumping so loudly that he could hear them. “Who’s Crowley? How do you know what a Time Lord is? And why aren’t you freaking out about being inside a Tardis?”

Questions too long repressed burst from inside him, begging to confirm that this was the answer, that Donna could be saved with her memories intact, that he wouldn’t have to do such a cruel thing to her. The being (for he wasn’t human, he couldn’t be) regarded him with gentle understanding and compassion. The Doctor had never seen such passionate kindness in anyone. This being seemed to be made of it, as if he were…

No. He couldn’t be. Angels were a myth. They couldn’t be real, could they? But when had he ever doubted the possibility of anything existing?

“Is a Tardis what you call this machine we’re in?” the being asked, looking around them, a curious frown on his face. “I’ve never been in one before. Some sort of transportation device, I take it. I’m not sure what it is that I should be freaking out about, unless it be that humans don’t have the ability to give large spaces a smaller appearance from the outside. That is it, isn’t it? Well, I suppose the cat is out of the bag on that front. And it’s not like Gabriel is able to reprimand me now,” he added in a satisfied undertone that confused and shocked the Doctor even more. Gabriel who? The Archangel Gabriel?! 

“I’m an angel,” the being said. 

The Doctor stared. 

“No,” he said, gaping like a fish that had just jumped out of the water to fall on dry land. “An angel? An actual, wings, heaven, divine glory and all that angel?”

Standing up, the being folded his hands before him and extended a pair of radiant, white wings that spanned the whole length of the Tardis’s console. The Doctor jumped to his feet and stared some more. This was real. It was happening. A real, flesh and blood angel. Over nine hundred years of traveling and he’d never encountered such a glorious mythical being as this. 

“Look at you,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful, you are.”

The angel smiled, a slight blush reddening his cheeks as he dipped his chin shyly.

“Oh,” he said. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you. My name is Aziraphale. I used to be a Principality, but I quit.”

The Doctor frowned. Angels could quit? That was a thing? He opened his mouth to ask, but no, that wasn’t relevant right now. Donna needed help. Whatever Aziraphale had done was keeping her relaxed, but it hadn’t been the end of it. 

The sound of a door opening and closing in the distance came through the open door of the Tardis. Aziraphale turned, tucking his wings away. They vanished as if they had never been there at all. How did he do that? Were they still there, folded away across his back, just invisible to anyone else? 

“Crowley’s home,” Aziraphale said, looking relieved. “Hopefully we can sort this out between the two of us.”

The Doctor turned to Donna, his heart breaking with pain and desperate hope that it would be alright, after all, that they wouldn’t have to lose each other. He bent down to pick her up and carried her over to the nearest chair, a swiveling one bolted down near the console.

“She’ll be much more comfortable in a bed,” Aziraphale said. 

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at him. Having Donna in his arms was the only thing that kept him from jumping in surprise when he saw a bed, wide and comfy, standing in the midst of his console room. The floor had even expanded to accommodate it. 

“Probably not the best place for it,” Aziraphale said, as if producing a bed from thin air was as simple as breathing, “but it’s the fastest.”

Yeah. Fast. That had certainly been fast. Carefully, just in case the bed turned out to be a delusion of his weary mind, the Doctor poked it with his knee before laying Donna down on it. She continued sleeping soundly, but her brow was drawn and tense. She hadn’t looked like that before. He took her hand, squeezing gently, wanting her to know that he was here, even if she couldn’t be consciously aware of it. Whatever Aziraphale had done must be wearing off. Aziraphale hurried to the Tardis door and called out,

“Over here, Crowley. I’m afraid we have an emergency.”

“An emergency?” came the reply, which began distantly yet grew ever closer. “What kind of emergency? And where did you get an old police box? I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

The mysterious Crowley appeared in the doorway. The Doctor’s breath froze in his throat as nerves tickled in his gut. There he was. The being from the 14th century. The angel, rather. 

Of course. That was why he’d been able to alter reality so easily. But he didn’t have the power to do anything he wanted, else Aziraphale would have been able to cure Donna all on his own. Unless Crowley was more powerful than he was. Was he? Oh, for Donna’s sake, the Doctor sure hoped so. 

“What the heaven are you doing with my face?” Crowley cried out.

Oh, right. That. But they didn’t have time for that now. Donna was getting worse by the second. She’d started mumbling in her sleep, her voice a pained groan behind her teeth. 

“I’m afraid the similarity will have to wait,” Aziraphale said, beating the Doctor to it. “Although I would very much like to know myself.”

He cast the Doctor another perturbed and curious glance, which the Doctor might have felt sheepish about if it weren’t for the overwhelming time pressure. 

“My friend needs help,” the Doctor said. “Please. I searched for you back in the 14th century, but the Tardis brought me here. We met. You—”

“Sent you back to your ship,” Crowley said, “so you would stop asking meddlesome questions. I remember. You may have decided to take my form for a spin, but you still smell the same.”

Crowley remembered the way he smelled? Should the Doctor be flattered or creeped out? Although, smell was the sense that lingered the longest in the memory. Who knew what angels could remember. Possibly everything they’d ever experienced.

“Never mind how he smells,” Donna groaned, her eyes fluttering open. “Get on with it already. Please.”

“Quite right,” Aziraphale said, hurrying to Donna’s side. “Crowley, dear, I sure do hope you can help me with this.”

“I do, too,” the Doctor said. “I can’t do anything to help Donna. That’s why I brought her here.”

“What exactly happened?” Crowley asked, stepping towards the bed. Frowning at Donna, he sniffed the air again, like a dog getting a read of their surroundings. Aziraphale hadn’t done that. Crowley’s eyes narrowed even further and he flicked out his tongue. A forked tongue. What the—

“She’s both Time Lord and human?” Crowley asked, frowning between Donna and the Doctor in bewilderment. 

“As best as I can tell,” Aziraphale said, “she started out as human, but a bit of the Doctor’s essence became enmeshed with Donna’s. We didn’t get around to an explanation for how that happened.”

“The Doctor,” Donna said in that strident tone of hers that made it very clear that this was somehow all the Doctor’s fault, “kept an old hand of his around for some reason, it threw regenerative energy at me, a new Doctor popped out, and I got all the Doctor’s smarts in my head.”

“Except that her body can’t take having Time Lord abilities,” the Doctor said. “If we don’t do something soon—”

He cut himself off, looking down at Donna in apology, almost saying that ever present “I’m so sorry” that he said much too damn often.

“I know what will happen, Dumbo,” Donna said, but there was no rancor in her voice this time as she gifted him with an understanding smile that he most certainly didn’t deserve. 

“You’ll be perfectly alright, my dear,” Aziraphale said, laying a hand on her shoulder and smiling. “Crowley and I will figure this out, won’t we love?”

“Melding together two species that aren’t meant to be remotely compatible?” Crowley said. “Sure, why not?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale hissed under his breath, chiding Crowley with a sharp glance.

“Okay, yes,” Crowley said. “Of course we can do this. I used to build stars. You think this can faze me?”

Stars. Blimey, this being created stars. Planets, too? Nebulae? It was like standing before a god.

The Doctor snapped out of it. Now was not the time to gape in admiration at the miraculous beings before him. Donna was fading fast, and these angels helping her was the only miracle that he cared about right now. Crowley and Aziraphale murmured to each other in a language that the Tardis didn’t translate, couldn’t translate—OMG angelic language!—before they came to Donna’s side, each on opposite sides of the bed, Crowley brushing the Doctor out of the way, and placed their hands on her head. Their eyes closed and twin looks of concentration came over their faces. 

Sweat gathered on the Doctor’s palms, his stomach twisting in cruel, anxious knots. He bit down on the urge to yank at his hair, fearing that any large motion might distract them. Donna’s breath continued to huff alarmingly fast for a long minute before slowing and fading into the calmness of unconsciousness, but tension still tightened her face. The angels didn’t move. If they conversed with each other, it was in a way that the Doctor couldn’t perceive. As silently as he could, he padded toa the console and rested his hands on it, head falling forward, seeking the Tardis’s comfort. She didn’t respond in her usual loud ways, likely also trepidatious of disturbing the vital process, but he sensed her shared anxiety. She’d always liked Donna. Normally, she wasn’t keen on uninvited stowaways, but when Donna had popped up out of nowhere in her wedding dress, she hadn’t minded at all. 

Donna hummed, a soft sound that brought the Doctor’s head up, eyes wide, hearts in his throat. It wasn’t a sound of pain or consciousness, for her eyes were still closed. The angels hadn’t moved, but the Doctor could swear that there was a shimmer around them now, white on Aziraphale and crimson on Crowley, so faint that it might be excused as a trick of the light, but the Doctor knew this wasn’t so. He squinted, hand diving inside his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. But that would be the height of disrespect, wouldn’t it? Getting readings off them without their permission while they tried to help, and he and Donna so desperate. Besides, the sonic wasn’t designed to examine angels. It would probably explode. The Tardis herself felt wowed by their presence, and a little peeved, probably at Crowley for manipulating her so badly back in the 14th century. The Doctor couldn’t blame her. He would have firm words with him himself if it weren’t for the dire circumstances. And if Crowley wasn’t able to smite him into ash with no hope of regeneration, as he probably could. The Bible might be completely wrong, but the angels sure were smity in it. Was it really worth the risk? Besides, the Doctor might owe him Donna’s life

An eternity passed. Well, not an eternity, but close enough. The Doctor had been sunken in a chair with his head in his hands for ages when Aziraphale announced,

“That should do it.”

The Doctor’s head shot up. Had he heard correctly? Could it be? Aziraphale’s eyes were open, gazing at Donna, who still looked comatose. The Doctor couldn’t see Crowley’s face, but he took a step back, hips swaying as he shook stiffness out of his hands. Rushing to them, the Doctor placed a hand on Donna’s face, murmuring her name. She felt warm. Not feverish warm, but was it something to worry about?

“Did you manage it?” he asked the ethereal beings. “Did it work?”

“It worked perfectly,” Aziraphale said with his comforting smile. “It was most challenging. Certainly not something we were ever trained for, integrating two different species, but Crowley’s gift for healing really is unparalleled.”

Crowley brushed this off with a wave of his hand, his face scrunched up as if Aziraphale were embarrassing him.

“I’m rusty as heaven, let’s not make a big deal of it.”

Weird turn of phrase. Wasn’t that the second time he had said “heaven” where “hell” fit the context?

Donna groaned. The Doctor immediately forgot everything else while he took her hand and studied her intently.

“Donna? Are you alright? How do you feel?”

“Like I just woke up from the longest plane ride,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “My head’s a bit stuffy, but it doesn’t hurt. Before, it felt like it was going to explode.”

“So that feeling’s gone? Nothing hurts?”

She sat up, blinking softly.

“Nothing hurts, no,” Donna said, brushing her hair out of her face. “I feel a lot better. I still feel like me, but the me from just now, not the me from before. The Doctor Donna.” A massive grin burst on her face. “Oh my God, I really am the Doctor Donna now. Forever. I can stay with you.”

The Doctor joined in the smile, joy lightening every limb in his body in ecstatic glee. She could. She really could. He never had to say good-bye. Not this time. Not ever. 

“For as long as you want,” he said, voice trembling with happiness.

He pulled her into a giant hug, which she eagerly returned, both hopping like eager teenagers.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured against her hair.

“Me, too,” she said, equally emotional.

He’d never have been able to forgive himself if he’d been forced to wipe her memory, even if there was no other way to save her life. Around them, the Tardis thrummed with quiet, yet ecstatic cheer. When they pulled away, their eyes met with watery smiles of joy.

“Thank you so much,” he told the angels over her shoulder. “I’m sorry for barging in the way I did.”

“Oh, not at all,” Aziraphale said. “It was an emergency.”

“Hang on,” Donna said, staring at Crowley with a frown of surprise and suspicion. “Why do you two look alike? You can’t be brothers.”

“He stole my face,” Crowley said, pointing an accusing finger at the Doctor.

“I did not,” the Doctor exclaimed, standing his ground even as he fought the urge to squirm with embarrassment because yeah, he sorta had. “It’s not like I can choose what I look like with each new regeneration. It just happened. And we’re not identical identical. My hair’s brown.”

He’d always wanted to be ginger, just once, but it never worked out, did it? Even when his regeneration modeled itself on an actual ginger, nope. Same, old brown he’d had over and over again. Well, fine. The hell with it. 

“That hardly counts,” Crowley protested. “You still stole it. There is a subconscious choice involved. Don’t try to trick me. I know how Time Lords work. I was there when they were planning you.”

The Doctor gulped. He was? Wait, the Time Lords had been planned out? Planned out by who? Sure, these were angels, but that didn’t mean that God actually existed, did it? That God. The God. 

“Let me get this straight,” Donna said, holding her hands up for silence before pointing at the Doctor. “You met him,” she pointed at Crowley, “and liked his face so much that you regenerated into it?”

The Doctor grimaced, throwing his head back in despair.

“That’s not how it happened.”

“You look exactly like Crowley right now,” Aziraphale said, smiling in glee. “He makes the same face.”

Crowley frowned at him in disgust.

“No I don’t. I don’t look anything like that.”

“I’m sorry, dear, but yes you do.”

“Oh, great. So you copied my mannerisms too, did you?” he shot at the Doctor.

Really, this was ridiculous. It hadn’t been a conscious choice. This is why he preferred not to look like people. Things always got so awkward.

“I hardly knew you long enough to do that. In fact, in can hardly be said that I knew you at all. What we really should be focusing on right now is Donna.”

“Oh, don’t use me as an excuse,” Donna said, grinning. “I feel great. Wait, hang on.” She raised a finger, a question coming over her face. “Am I going to regenerate, too? If I’m about to die, is my body going to change?”

“You should, yeah. Right?”

They both turned towards the angels. 

“You’re both Time Lord and human now,” Aziraphale said. “So yes, you absolutely should.”

“Wow,” Donna whispered, amazed. “I’ll have a new face. A new voice. A new everything.” 

Would she be as brash, as bold, as full of fire and energy? Maybe not. But she would still be Donna. She would always be his Donna. 

“That’s going to be so wild,” Donna said, turning to the Doctor. Her smile shone with nervous anticipation. “You better not decide you don’t like me anymore.”

The Doctor grinned back, ecstatic to spend the rest of his life with her.

“Never.”


End file.
